The present invention relates to a printer comprising a carriage, a guide rail and a print surface, the carriage being movable along the guide rail and carrying a printhead that faces the print surface and is movable in a direction normal to the plane of the print surface.
In a printer of this type, e.g., an ink jet printer, a sheet of paper or any other recording medium is advanced in a subscanning direction over the print surface. The printhead is arranged on the carriage in such a position that it faces the print surface, and a nozzle face of the printhead forms a narrow gap with the paper on the print surface. A drive mechanism causes the carriage to move back and forth in a main scanning direction along the guide rail, the position of the carriage in the main scanning direction being detected by means of a ruler or the like, and, on the basis of the detection result, the nozzles of the printhead are fired at appropriate timings, so that ink dots are printed in the intended positions on the paper. To this end, the position of the printhead on the carriage must be adjusted with high precision.